Wednesday, November 28, 2007

Monday night, within 12 minutes of the pediatrician's office closing, Bo informed me that his ear hurt. He had developed a cough and his eyes were all red and cruddy, and I'd kept him home from school so it didn't come as a big surprise. I looked over at him and both of his ears were bright red. I figured 20 hours would make all the difference in getting him on antibiotics, so I took him to the urgent care. He had an ear infection and a fever and THEN the doctor said, "And I'll give him drops for his eyes because he has pink eye."

Now, I'm like a pink eye veteran. I got pink eye several times in my youth. Because I never was sick when I got it, I always thought of pink eye as it's own little disease, not any random eye infection that came along when the rest of your head was snotty and infected. So, when the doctor said that, I said, "Pink eye? Really? That's what that is?!" And the nice little doctor who was talking so gently and bustling around the little exam room sweetly, turned on me and bared his fangs. I guess he thought I was questioning his doctor knowledge; which, I'm totally allowed to do without getting bitten, but I wasn't.

"What!? What do you call an eye that is pink!? I mean, it's an adjective and a noun. Pink. Eye."

Oh, oh did you say adjective and noun? Mama don't know nuthin' about thems adj'tives and nowns. Excuse me while I get back to my very important job of letting my eyeballs roll back in my head and slobbering uncontrollably.

It really bugged me. It's not like the treatment would be any different, I was just axing about the terminology. Note to self, do not "question" sweet looking vampire doctor about nouns and adjectives.

Yesterday Avee got her cast removed, so I was off again spending my precious internets time schlepping ungrateful kids to doctor appointments. Oh just kidding, Bo even said, "Hey mom, sanks fo getting me liquid for my ee-yah when I said my ee-yah hote." (The doctor asked if he was okay with "liquid" for the antibiotics and Bo grabbed the term and ran with it).

We were prepared for her cast to be removed by blue scissors. I'm kind of a bad mom that I didn't suggest beforehand that it was probably not going to be scissors but rather a VERY LOUD SAW. But she was just so cute saying "buhlue sih-ssors" and making the motion with her two, sometimes three, very tiny fingers.

When the lady came at Avee with the saw, she was not a happy girl. I meant to besoothing and comforting, but I was busy taking pictures.

The cast came off and the enticing aroma of hyperactive toddler's 3 weeks of foot sweat filled the room. It was really gross. And I deal with gross almost daily.

The cast-cutter lady stuck Avee's cast in a brown paper bag and sent us off to wait for x-rays.

Back in the waiting area, the small room had filled up. Avee limp-pranced around holding her brown bagged cast. A lady asked her what she had in her bag. Avee said, "My casth. It stinks in the bag." The lady (probably not having heard or understand when Avee said cast) said, "Oh it stinks in there?" And Avee explained, "Yes, there's poop in here." The lady sort of jumped back in her seat. Another couple with children around Avee's age burst out laughing. Clearly they were familiar with toddler logic. Smell-that-mom-complains-about=Poop.

After the x-ray they could see exactly where the fracture was. When the orthopaedist came in, he sat down and had Avee walk for him and then turned to me and said, "Well, I'm just not sure if I want to put her in another cast for 10-14 days or if it's healed enough and she can be done with the cast, what do you think?" At which point I let my eyes lull back and I started to slobber. It was such a stark contrast to my experience with a doctor less than 24 hours before.

We decided on no cast but if she's till limping in a few days I have to take her back. I'm worried that another cast may be in store because today I was painting her toenails and grabbed her leg to pull up on my lap and she cried out in pain. I didn't think it would still be sore, I thought the limping would be from the muscles having to get strong again. But what do I know?

18 comments:

Doctors are the one group of people that can consistently make me growl. Your pink eye doc deserves a knock upside the head with a good ol' cavemama club. In fact, it makes me want to froth about all the times I've had sweet little docs go crazy defensive jsut cuz I axed a question for clarity's sake...

(Your eyes rolling back slobbering thing is hilarious.) And this whole post is classic.

And since your doctor wouldn't advise it outright, Get another cast. Avee may not sank you for it, but do it. She's so active that the swinging, lurching, jumping on a not entirely healed little leg (even if she goes back to crawling) can't be good for the long run.

YAY!!! I long-distanced signed the legendary Avee pink cast!! I'm so cool and awesome!!! Was she excited? (Don't answer, I bet she was, who wouldn't be?)

I hope this teaches you a lesson Mrs Nobody: When a trained physician is giving out instructions/sprinkling knowledge your way, you better listen and listen good. And do not, DO NOT, use any of the provided info to form a question (clearly marked by the "?"). This is Oh-why-yuh!

That first picture of Avee crying is so sad. Then she looks totally ok with it, then enthralled.

As you know I am in love with DR's today myself. Great post. What exactly are you gonna do with a sticky cast? I don't want that hand me down........not to be picky or nothin. LOVED the SHG signature. Oh how the blog has effected our lifes.

You should have smacked that Dr. And then you should have told the Other Dr. that he need to put it in a sentence with out using adjectives and nouns, just to make it easier on you. Seriously if some of these people can be dr.s then why can't I? Seriously. The saw is the best part, but you can't really explain to a toddler that they a re using a saw that can't cut them....they just hear saw!

Yo' chilluns have a bit o the suthun accent that mine do. Especially Katie, who is known for saying "I don' wan' do dat" in an elderly Mississipi black woman voice.

Didn't you just mutter to yourself the whole way home with all the smart-ass comments you wanted to fire at that jerk doctor? Been there too. Had one male nurse practitioner ask me in a sarcastic voice "is this your FIRST child?". Stupid me, I wondered if I should take my 12 month old with a 105 fever to the doctor! How overprotective and naive of me.

I had pink eye once! It was on my Birthday - very convenient. I'm sure my Mom has a few hilarious DR stories. Here, to make an appointment at our clinic place you have to call in the morning only. Between 8:30 and 8:45. What a joke. Poor Avee - I noticed she was all in PINK! You should've smacked that DR one! I'll be in that posse...

Glittersmama really calls 'em like she sees 'em (and as I see them as well) I really really can't stand when doctors think they know EVERYTHING and you know nothing. It actually quite pisses me off. I like the humble doctors, I'll stick with them. The pompous ones can shove it.

How frustrating! Hopefully you don't have to get her another cast and it heals o.k.

I've found that any doctor working after hours or on Saturdays is prone to vampire-like behavior. They don't want to be there so they take it out on people that really don't want to be there either, but need the help.

Lame doctor. I recently took my dd in to have a rash looked at. The nurse practitioner student did a full on physical. Told me she looked healthy, and started to head out the door...I said, yoohoo, did you want to see that odd rash? hellooooo! She acted all miffed and too cool for the rest of the exam.

I'm going to cut the doctor a little slack because he has probably dealt with about 153 parents and 86 children with upper respiratory infections, 15 child abuse victims, 12 lead poisoned babies, two children with severe neurological damage, and one little girl with a fever of unknown origin that may end up being terminal cancer within the past 24 hours. He may have just explained to a new mom that she passed AIDS on to her little girl, who now has a life expectancy of about 4 years. Oh, and in the past 3 days he's had exactly 9 hours of interupted sleep. It doesn't necessarily excuse his use of proscriptive grammar, but he gladly gave up his twenties to study pediatrics including fecal disimpactions (which definitely smell like poop) where he will be the lowest paid of all of his colleagues because he cares about kids that aren't even his. He could be making about 8 times what he does by simply changing specialties. But he loves your kid. Even when they do smell like poop. Oh, and to have all of those parents (including the child abusers) second guess, correct, complain and "give him a knock upside the head." Yep, he became a crazy grammarian. So, I'm going to let this one slide. I couldn't do what he does. I tried, but it was far too taxing. Luckily for us, he cares enough about kids to deal with their parents.